Code signing provides a digital signature for software to confirm or authenticate at a destination that the software is from the specified source and that the code has not been altered or corrupted. Typically, a digital signature is used for each file within a software package. Therefore, if a software package includes multiple files, then multiple digital signatures are used to authenticate the software package. Digitally signing multiple files at the source and authenticating the digitally signed files at the destination is time consuming. In addition, each additional file of the software package increases the number of files used for authentication of the software package.
For these and other reasons, a need exists for the present invention.